I was very luck to spend my 55th birthday with a good old friend in Beijing, China. He took me to a Hakka (“Kejiaren”) restaurant near Houhai where we had a jolly good meal and a jolly good time.
My Chinese name (Zhou Min-de) was given to me in 1983 by a Taiwanese farmer, Mr. Zhou, who was also Hakka (in Linlo Xian, near Pintung in Southern Taiwan).
We enjoyed the food and each others company. It was a mild August night, and the world seemed to be at peace. It was a double 5 festival for me, so to say. That must mean luck, prosperity and long, long life!
After the feast
PS: We had beers, of course, what else? It just came naturally.
In most Asian places, street food is an essential part of everyday life. That’s also the case in Taipei. Unfortunately, I did not rise to the occasion and took only a few photos when I should have taken many many more. I promise, I will rise to the occasion next time.
It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, when my friends Chimei, Tzu-Chin and Jim were strolling with me through the streets near “Taida”, one of the famous universities in Taipei.
Various kinds of filled waffle (hong dou bian)
Red bean, chocolate and cream are the fillings
Chimei, Jim and Tzu-Chin in the street food paradise
Saturday, I had lunch with an old friend which was very pleasant and the Chinese food was excellent. After that I went for a long walk around the city. In 1983 when I did my field research here in Taiwan I came to Taipei from time to time for meetings and discussions and got to know the place a little. So I wandered around on my old tracks thoroughly enjoying the beautiful mild autumn weather.
The modern art museum in the Peace park
Fortune telling services are available
Street scene
Trees and people in the Peace park
The charming Starbucks
After a while, I was looking for a quiet place to have coffee, not an easy undertaking on a Saturday afternoon when the city is buzzing with people. The first Starbucks was completely full, crowded and noisy. But I was lucky and found a charming place, also a Starbucks. I watched the customers come in, order drinks and food, relax and leave the place. Lots of students were surfing the net and/or doing work on their laptops. Some seemed to do homework and assignments. I was utterly at peace with the world.
A look into the future
I had not much time since I wanted to meet friends later in the day and therefore went to “Taida”, one of the islands universities. I used the subway which was excellent and very easy to navigate. I had a pleasant trip. I could not resist to take the above photo. Somehow it felt like a window to the future. The running banner in the train informing the innocent traveler about the “don’t’s” included among others ‘betel nut chewing’ which was very common 26 years ago when I first visited the island.
I did not drink any wine that day. More about my adventures later.
Greetings from Taiwan; it’s a great place to visit.
Autumn is an exciting time in Europe not just for grape growers but also for other nature lovers. In the forests and along the many paths, rural roads, and highways various types of berries and other fruit can be spotted. The photos below are from Schoden, Saar. I took them last week.
I have started to read an Italian classics: “Science in the Kitchen and Art of Eating Well”, by Pellegrino Artusi (in Italian: La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene), written in 1891 (!!!!). It’s a great book. The following poem depicts it’s spirit:
“Tutte le societa, tutte le feste
Cominciamo e finiscono in pappate
E prima che s’accomodin le teste
Voglion essere le pance accomodate.
I preti che non son dei meno accorti,
Fan dieci miglia per un desinare.
O che si faccia l’uffizio dei morti,
O la festa del santo titolare,
Se non v’e dopo la sua pappatoria
Il salmo non finisce con la gloria.”
In English:
Every social gathering and holiday
in s with a feats begun and terminated;
and before our heads can have their say
our bellies must be fully sated.
Priests, who are said to know a thing or two,
will walk ten miles for a meal.
Wheater giving last rites with little ado
or calling on the local saint to heal,
if food and drink don’t close the story,
they cannot end the psalm in glory.
I raise my virtual glass of wine and drink to the poet Filippo Pananti.
PS: My Yellow-vented Bulbul birds have left the nest today which came quite as a surprise. I wanted to check on them this morning and take a photo but there was only one bird in the nest. When I lifted my camera, the remaining bird flew away. Nobody could see my face, but I wonder what it looked like. They are gone. So fast. How could they grow up so quickly? Hope they survive, and come back from time to time. there are no cats on our terrace.
The lead article in this issue of the journal is about the wine judges and their reliability in judging wines. This was the perfect contrast reading to the long list of award winners from Decanter. Again Robert T. Hodgson has summarized some more research about the topic in question.
The title of the article is “An Analysis of the Concordance among 13 U.S. Wine Competitions”. Hodgson followed over 4,000 wines entered in these competitions of which 2,440 wines were entered in more than three competitions. 47% of these wines received gold medals in one show but 84% of these same wines received no medals at all in the subsequent shows. These results indicate that winning a Gold medal is greatly influenced by chance alone. Or to put it another way: Wines which were deemed of an extraordinary quality by some wine judges were assessed as very ordinary by others.
In come the Decanter World Wine Awards 2009 results. What does the study say about these awards. Nothing, of course. My skepticism about wine shows, however, is rather stronger then before.
One may ask the question are the Hodgson findings about wine shows in the U.S. applicable to shows such as Decanter? Can we safely conclude that some of the Decanter award winners would be seen as ordinary by other wine judges at other shows, and that some of non-winners could easily win a Gold somewhere else. Or could the Decanter wine judges replicate the tasting with the exact identical findings? Or what would their “margin of error” or inconsistency be?
What Hodgson’s study also tells us is, that wine judges are just human beings who are inconsistent and unpredictable. But we might rightly assume that they are trying to do the right thing but fail in this from time to time. The judges at the wine competitions surveyed, though, seem to have a shared idea about the wines they do not like and therefore win no awards at all. That’s at least something.
A few wine blogs have taken up the issue as well. Alder Yarrow for instance writes on Vinography about the AAWE paper and calls for a stop of the proliferating state wine shows. He admits, however, that the shows surveyed where, and I quote, “essentially the largest and most prestigious wine competitions in America”.
What does this tell us wine consumers? Well, wine quality and medals won at wine shows are not “orthogonal”, the presence of one doesn’t imply the presence of the other. Therefore, trust your own taste and buy what you like, possibly after tasting and let the wine shows be wine shows.
How about the vintner? Well, it is very nice for any wine producer to be recognized for outstanding quality and performance. So it is nice to win a medal at a wine show or getting a five star winery rating from James Halliday for instance. But it is not the end if this is not coming along. Most important is that ordinary people like to drink and buy your wine; the rest takes care of itself.
Cheers folks, trust your own judgment and taste as many wines as you can.
It was performed by Ekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theatre, Russia. Playing Violetta Valery was soprano Natalia Starkova, a gold medallist at the International Bellini Vocalists’ Competition. Alfredo was played by Dymtry Kuzmin, a soloist with the National Opera of Ukraine. The conductor was Mikhail Granovsky from Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow.
To say it from the outset: this was a fantastic performance. Of course the end of La Traviata is tragic but the joyous parts are equally beautiful. All the singers were just great and they harmonised so well.
For me as a vintner, the so called “Drinking Song” (well its’ actually about the beauty of love) is just wonderful.
Here are the lyrics:
Alfredo
Libiamo ne’ lieti calici,
che la bellezza infiora;
E la fuggevol ora
S’inebrii a voluttà.
Libiam ne’ dolci frementi
che suscita l’amore,
poichè quell’ occhio al core
omnipotente va.
Libiamo, amore, amor fra i calici
più caldi baci avrà.
Tutti
Ah! libiam, amor fra’ calici
più caldi baci avrà.
Violetta
Tra voi sapò dividere
Il tempo mio giocondo;
Tutto è follia nel mondo
Ciò che non è piacer.
Godiam, fugace e rapido
E il gaudio dell’amore;
E un fior che nasce e muore,
Nè più si può goder.
Godiam!
C’invita un fervido
Accento lusinghier.
Tutti
Ah! Godiamo!
La tazza e il cantico
La notte abbella e il riso,
In questo paradiso
ne scopra il nuovo dì.
Violetta
La vita è nel tripudio.
Alfredo
Quando non s’ami ancora..
Violetta
Nol dite a chi ‘ignora.
Alfredo
E il mio destin così.
Tutti
Ah! sì godiamo..
La tazza e il cantico
La notte abbella e il riso;
Godiamo, in questo paradiso
Ne sopra il nuovo dì.
I could not find Natalia and Dymtry on youtube singing this song. That’s the bad news. The good news is you can go and see her performing live.
But I will not let you go without the song: here it is. There are many versions of this song on the internet. By chance I selected this one.
Salute Giuseppe
Fields near the monastery of Andechs, Upper Bavaria
Although right now I am sitting on our family vineyard in Glenburn, Victoria, I have to post this little story and my impressions from a visit to the monastery of Andechs, Ammersee in Upper Bavaria. Maria and Christian took me there on a Sunday in early July. We drove up from Fischen. It was my very first visit to this famous place of worship and beer brewing. I will disappoint the wine freaks among you again but Andechs is not known for its wine but its beer.
Gate with beer mugs on the way from the car park to the monastery
When you walk up to the monastery church from the car park, you pass the above gate, with one litre beer mugs above your head. “Look up folks”, it says, this is what you are aspiring to: litres and litres of Germany’s finest beers.
The church
The church is, as many churches in Bavaria, built in Baroque style. I found it very pretty.
The inside of the church
Carl Orff is buried here
Who does not know the “Carmina Burana” and the famous composer, Carl Orff who was a native of Diessen, Ammersee just a couple of kilometres from here. He is buried in Andechs. I liked the inscription of the stone: Summus finis, which freely translates as “everything ends”.
Music festivals honouring Carl Orff are looming
Maria and Christian were to attend the music festival that very evening, while I had to catch my plane back to Bangkok. I would have loved to join them and give Bangkok a miss, but…
Droves of people came to enjoy lunch at Andechs
The monasteries “Gastwirtschaft”, Bavarian country inn style was full of people. We had, of course, lunch there. Christian and I, we shared a pork knuckle (they are just too big). A litre of dark brown beer was just the right drink to wash it down.
Pork knuckle divided into two
I just love to eat pork knuckle. It was delicious. What a great visit that was. I am so grateful to my friends for taking me to Andechs.
A Bavarian litre mug
Andechs is a great place. If you are travelling in Bavaria this summer, please budget some time for a visit. it is definitely worth it.
Photo of the Ammersee and the church in Diessen, just opposite of Fischen
After the visiting program for our MPs from Malaysia had come to an end in Munich, I had just about 24 hours before my return flight to Bangkok. I decided to visit good old friends from our time in Jakarta: Maria and Christian Hegemer who live in Fischen, a small hamlet at the Ammersee, one of the Upper Bavarian lakes. Fischen is part of the village of Pähl and was first mentioned in a deed in 776. The region is a very popular recreation area just about 45 minutes from Munich and attracts many tourists.
Community members assembling in traditional Bavarian dress
Christian picked me up from the train station. What a happy reunion that was. I was lucky that the villagers had planned a village event. They had hired one of the larger cruising boats for an afternoon on the lake. The local brass band entertained the 200 guests. I was, what we call in Australia a “ring in” but was warmly welcomed.
The Fischen Brass Band
We got on to the boat in Herrsching, then went south to Fischen and turned north on the other side of the lake. The scenery is very lovely, green forests, villages, churches and many beautiful lakeside houses. It was a wonderful summer’s day with bright blue sky. The brass band played jolly good music. The villagers were cheerful and we had a great time on the boat.
Christian and Maria
The natural drink in Bavaria is beer, though wine was also on offer. It came from Wachau, Austria, was drinkable though not a memorable drop.
The tour ended in the early evening. Shortly before we landed in Herrsching a fire works greeted us. The evening concluded in the inn of Maria’s brother Beni (Benedict) in Aidenried where Christian shared a cheese platter with me. More beers found their way into my stomach. It was a most wonderful day in Upper Bavaria.
As you all know life in the tropics is sweet, and can therefore be described as “heaven on a stick”, as we say in Australia. This is even more so since (finally) the best beer of the world arrived in our local neighbourhood super market, the Villa Market in Thonglor, Bangkok.
There are of course many “best” beers in the world depending on ones taste, upbringing, and the general circumstances. But since I come from the Mosel river, my favourite beer is “Bitburger Pilsener“, brewed in the small town of Bitburg about 30 km north of my home town Trier.
Bitburger Pilsener
After patronizing this supermarket for about nine month and browsing the beer section consisting mostly of Japanese, Thai and Bavarian beers, you cannot imagine my joy to find a few bottles of Bitburger beer.
Apart from a good beer, a glass of wine and a good meal, the tropical pleasures are simple: enjoy the fragrance of a Frangipani flower (Plumeria), a dash in the pool, and company of family and friends.
Posted by themanfrommoselriver 
The Man from Mosel River 